In the spring of 1938, Stalin presided over a

meeting of the Central Committee

of the Communist Party which gave

its findings on the state of the Soviet aircraft

industry. He was assisted by members of the

Presidium, the Narkomavprom,

the Glavaviaprom, etc.

Russian "fighters" were on the agenda

seeing that the aircraft sent to Spain in support

of the Republican cause against the Nationalists

were being given a hammering by their

German counterparts in the Condor Legion.

Up until then, the Polikarpov I-15 (sesquiplane)

and I-16 (monoplane) fighters had won air

superiority over anything that was flying around

in the Spanish skies; they had also got themselves

a serious reputation, as much for

their speed and manoeuvrability, as for

their firepower. But the advent of new German

fighters on the scene in 1937 upset all this.

The Soviet planes were outclassed,

and Polikarpov's I-16 and Willy

Messerschmitt's Bf 109B were compared

at length during this meeting.

This book offers an exhaustive coverage,

by chronological order - which is one of its

original features - every single Soviet fighter

of the period, from obscure projects which

did no go off the drawing table,

to the best known mass-produced models.